L.J. Owens passed away Friday nite.

[Jimi G]

Sorry to have say or write this but a long time friend of mine and a local Cobra owner, L.J. Owens, passed away Friday nite in Florida. I will keep everyone posted about funeral times and such, please keep his Son and rest of his friends and family in your prayers.

This was posted on another site it gives a little detail as to what happened.

LJ left for a 2 week vacation in the Viper. He went to visit a couple of old High School buddies and to visit my son down in Miami. I had hoped to fly down and meet up with him for a little while and drive back with him but work got in the way.

The autocross was supposed to be sort of a shakedown for the Viper so that we could see if it had any inherent handling issues. And even tho we were on the original 2001 super hard tires with no traction we found we couldn't spin it, even tho LJ tried, as he so dearly loved to go round in circles. The autocross told us what needed to be changed to suit our styles. We now knew how to change the alignment and that it needed tires desperately.

We got some new RA1 rubber tweaked the settings and then LJ headed off for his trip. He kept calling me with his MPG and we found that he got 22 mpg with the cruise control set at 75 mph. He was so proud of that.

He met with one H.S. buddy in Jacksonville, Fla and the headed to Miami to see my son. They took in the boat show there and found us a nice little boat at only $34M then headed up to Tampa to met with H.S. buddy #2.

On his way home from there he took a very slow pace and went on every little side trip that interested him. He was on the coast road (hwy 98) when it began to rain so he put the top up and headed for the Interstate.

Apparently a few minutes after he got on the interstate while he was traveling with the cruise control set at about 70 he suddenly veered off the road. Witnesses said it was as if he was avoiding something in the road. He hit the wet grassy median and spun the car backwards into oncoming traffic. He sideswiped a Bimmer, gained a little control over the car and then went backwards off the road. Then he hit something that stopped the car very quickly.

Then it went bad. Somehow his seat belt snapped and he was ejected from the car thru the roof.

The officer said it looked as if the seat belt had been cut. I know it was in great shape before he left and since I talked to him several times that day I know that if there had been an issue he would have told me.

They can't figure out what caused him to swerve in the first place and say they've never seen anything like the seat belt. They find nothing with the car that could have caused the accident.

They also said that minus the seat belt snapping he would have been all right.

Those of you that know him probably liked him. He was a great guy and would literally give you the shirt off his back.

He will leave a big hole in my wife and I's life. And while we weren't genetically related he was truly my kids' Uncle.

We don't know when the services will be, but I will post on the forum.